Enchantments and Magic

[Professor Dia Hubbles]

Dia had locked herself in her office all day, marking essays. It was a tedious job but she had set them and had to take the repercussions of it. She didn't mind marking as much as she minded the utter tripe some students handed in. After a particularly nasty essay in which the student compared Venus with a mound or antelope droppings, Dia left her office and went for a stroll.

She was not concentrating on where she was walking but she was merely walking. The day was growing shorter and it grew harder for her to keep track of the time. She knew it was late afternoon but now that she was in the northern hemisphere when the sun set she could hardly know whether it was four or seven o'clock. The English weather was easily forgettable and after spending so much time in equatorial regions it had thrown her off some what.

Before she knew it, Dia was by the lake. She was a far way away from the castle by now and could smell the damp forest nearby. Even as a child Dia could not bring herself to look at the forest and now that she was older that had not changed. She walked a little farther on, father away from the castle, and now took in her surroundings. The twilight sky was enchanting and reminded Dia of the ladies in Egypt, with their angelic, gothic chanting. Their beauty was mirrored it the ethereal sky.

[Quinn Locksley]

"Still got your nose in the sky?" Quinn mused. She stepped out from the shadows of the forest and stood in front of Dia. "At least some things never change," she grunted, crossing her arms. She looked Dia up and down, a grimace plastered on her face.

It had been a long time since she had seen Dia and it had been a change. Going from spending every waking hour with her, and some sleeping ones too, to not seeing her in such a long time was quite a change. Quinn had accepted it and changed herself.

Now she looked at the woman in front of her with new eyes. She had always felt Dia was the better, nicer person, and in some respects she was, but Quinn had come to understand that those qualities she had envied and even loathed in her had been weaknesses. Quinn had no weaknesses. So she looked at the lady and glowered indifferently.

[Professor Dia Hubbles]

Dia stopped dead in her tracks as someone moved out of the shadows. She put a nervous hand to her chest and breathed rapidly. Then she heard the voice, saw the face, met the eyes, and her own when wide. Quinn? she thought, unsure if she was excited or apprehensive, and she took a step closer to her.

"Quinn ..." she whispered it as though if she said it any louder it would slip away into nothingness. The last day they spoke flashed sharply in her mind, she stood back. But Dia could see the change, feel the change in her eyes, her look, her manor. Dia had grown to know her very well and could tell if the slightest thing was wrong. Now she could not identify what she saw.

"You know me," she stumbled with a nervous giggle, "skies the limit and all that." She smiled warmly at Quinn, as though nothing had changed, as though that day had not happened, and rolled her eyes towards the sky. She looked back towards Quinn, caught her glower and cleared her throat, unsure of how to move forwards. "Some things do change, though, don't they?" trying to keep the conversation going.

[Quinn Locksley]

Quinn breathed in her old friends surprise like it was the scent of a sweet flower. She looked Dia up an down, thinking, how very much you have grown, Dia, not podgy any more. Her face was lean her body slender and her skin pale. Quinn nodded, she did know Dia and well enough to know the look in her eyes was on someone she did not recognise.

"Have I changed that much," she asked, raising her palms to the sky and turning around, "to warrant such a look from you?" Quinn faced Dia again, cocked her head up, jutting out her jaw and grimaced at her. "Many things have happened since we last saw one another. And times change." She looked up at the stars and added, "Times change people."

[Professor Dia Hubbles]

The look Quinn gave her chilled Dia to the core. It was strange, harsh and hateful. This was not the Quinn she had known, she quickly realised. Quickly regaining her composure, Dia turned and looked back to the skies. "See that constellation there?" she asked, raising her arm and pointing to the individual stars that make up the constellation, "Draco?"

She glanced at Quinn and lowered her arm. "He was the mythical dragon set to protect the golden apples from Hercules as one of his twelve labours. It has always been there, and it will always, ever constant, ever bright in the night sky." She turned to Quinn again, studied her face, "but you have changed, you have become full of hate, I can see it in your eyes, where once you were just filled with grief."

[Quinn Locksley]

Quinn frowned when Dia recovered her poise. In the past Dia was easy to read, open and sharing, now she had knocked her out of that confidence. She clearly had seen something she didn't like. Perhaps she had changed, Quinn questioned.

When she was bidden she looked at the constellation. She didn't see it, she rarely could, but nodded to satisfy the example. And then it was clear that she had not, that's Dia for you, always using the stars to prove a point. She always did a crack up job of it and now was no exception.

Quinn met Dia's cool gaze hotly. Hate? she fumed, "hate?" She spat the word out like venom. "You know nothing of hate!" She crossed her arms, closing herself off. "Dia, you've missed much in the past few years and now you presume it was all childish and for nothing. Ridiculous!" She didn't know the true Quinn, no one does!

[Professor Dia Hubbles]

Dia frowned, recoiling from the snake. "I presume nothing," she said, stepping forward again, "nor know nothing because you cut yourself off from me, Quinn, remember?" Dia did, and she would never forget it. How could she? And Quinn was not the type ... had not been the type, to forget such things either though their motives were different.

Dia brushed a lock out of her face, showing her proud face with a smile in th light from the crescent moon. "But then again, some things don't change. You're still quick to retort and how harsh that retort still is." It was somewhat comforting to see that she had not lost her friend completely to this angry person. "How's you're father?" Dia asked conversationally, the intense direction of their conversation was giving her a headache.

[Quinn Locksley]

Quinn gritted her teeth, she knew this was a loosing battle. She had changed and had stayed the same, it was how she had grown, alone, independent. But she would never admit it to Dia, she could tell Dia didn't expect her to when she changed the subject. Father?

She was reminded of one summer when Dia had stayed with her and her father for a week. They had visited the family farm and had lots of space to practice quidditch without fear of being caught by muggles. That was the first time Dia and Quinn had had their first discrepancy about muggles. Quinn always though them ignorant, though her basis of comparison was off. Dia's parents were muggles and Quinn had broken thin ice. Dia had never forgiven her for that.

But now the witch asked about her father. Quinn now looked to the stars. "Father always shared your love of the heavens," she said quietly, absently, "and left the telescope up for you at the farm just in case you wanted to use it again." She had never told Dia this, it never seemed right to bring it up again. "He ... Father is well as could be expected," Quinn dropped her gazed to stare at nothing in particular, "he has developed Alzheimer’s." Looking at Dia now she asked, “and how are your parents faring? Have you seen them?”

[Professor Dia Hubbles]

Dia looked askance at Quinn when she spoke of her father's telescope. Quinn and her father had not had the best of relationships with her father being Muggle born but he had tried hard, Dia could always tell that from the few times she spent with the two of them. Dia didn't say anything about Quinn's father's ailment, a sensitive area of discussion.

Dia followed Quinn into the new topic, her own parents. Dia smiled. "Yes," she said slowly, remembering their first meeting in over ten years, "we got together for Christmas last, it was quite interesting. But it turned out they were just worried about me and scared because they didn't understand." Dia crossed her arms and looked up at the stars again. "Father understands now but Mother is just as stubborn as always." She smiled and left it there.

[Quinn Locksley]

Quinn nodded and frowned thoughtfully as Dia spoke. She had met with her parents, that was good, but now there were more pressing matters at hand. Dia and Quinn, the childhood friends, were once again standing side by side at the lake but now having grown, Quinn did not know what to say.

This was a new experience for Quinn. Being as quick witted as she so highly prised herself to be, she always had a hasty and sharp retort but now she could think of nothing to say. She looked up at the sky. She had never understood what Dia had seen in it. It was merely a large expanse of uncharted territory that was too vast for Quinn's liking. But other then that thought, nothing.

[Professor Dia Hubbles]

Dia noticed the silence that fell over them. It was not the same as it had once been, comfortable. Once upon a school day, the two could spend the whole day in silence and it not be awkward. But now, hardly two minutes had past and the silence was chocking. Dia was usually uncomfortable but this was too much to handle.

She noticed where Quinn's gaze was: were Dia's usually was. But now Dia faced Quinn with her arms at her sides, one hand fidgeting with the seam of her dress. "What happened between us, Quinn?" Dia asked more suddenly then she had accepted, "we used to be such good friends then that one argument ... We've had many arguments, why was that the one that broke the camel's back?"